Macrosteles laevis

My impression is that the commonest Macrosteles round here is sexnotatus, though the vast majority of Macrosteles I catch are females which I cannot name with certainty. So I attacked this one with an expectation that it would probably be sexnotatus. A cursory glance at the diagrams of their genitalia and the aedeagus looked about right, but alongside it was ossiannilssoni which looked very similar. They mainly differed in the shape of the sternal apodemes, and looking at these on my leafhopper I swiftly ruled out sexnotatus. But ossiannilssoni sounded very unlikely given the dry habitat this was found in. At this point I noticed one or two things that didn't look quite right about the aedeagus shape - there didn't seem to be a flattened straight section in the curve and the curve extended further round. Searching a bit more widely I realised that both aedeagus and apodeme matched laevis - apparently a common species if not one I'd identified before.

Note that I damaged one prong of the aedeagus slightly when extracting it - the arm that sticks out to the left in the side view below should not stick out like this - it should follow the same curve as the other arm that curves smoothly downwards.

male Macrosteles laevis showing close-ups of vertex and face, aedeagus from behind and side (the latter with one broken arm) and second sternal apodeme (with detached sternite above it), Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 3rd September 2023

This one was at a different site in the same project area, an established meadow. It was one of 29 Macrosteles attracted to LED lights during an hour-long survey. The vast majority were females and of those I retained, this was the only fully identifiable male. It was 3.2mm long.

male Macrosteles laevis showing close-ups of head (4 angles), aedeagus (3 angles) and second sternal apodeme, Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 1st October 2023